The actor Sienna Miller hailed the “wave of change” enveloping the media and entertainment industries in an impassioned speech at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday.
Speaking at an event on sexual exploitation and harassment hosted by the Guardian, UN Women and the Norwegian government, Miller praised the courage of the women who have spoken out about their experiences of harassment since the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke last year.
Recounting a moment when she felt professionally “undervalued and undermined” in her own career, she said: “I have really just had enough. Enough of being undervalued, enough of being undermined, enough of being disrespected, because of my gender.
“A few years ago I was offered a gutsy, powerful role in a play that was close to my heart. It was a two-hander on Broadway, but I was offered less than half what my male co-star was being paid.
“The decision to turn down this particular role was difficult and lonely. I was forced to choose between making a concession on my self-worth and dignity and a role that I was in love with.
“It turned out to be a pivotal moment in my life. Not because I did it. But because I didn’t.
“I am excited that this movement challenges the loneliness and isolation we have all felt in relatively insignificant or extreme situations. I really feel that as women, we are no longer alone.”
The event, moderated by Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee, was hosted on the sidelines of the fortnight-long UN Commission on the Status of Women, the annual meeting that assesses progress towards ending discrimination in member states.
The CSW, the UN’s largest meeting on gender equality, this year focuses on issues facing rural women and girls, such as improving living standards, food security and access to land. The summit also explores the efforts being made to improve women’s representation in – and access to – the media.
Revelations of alleged assault by Weinstein sparked an unprecedented global movement to expose and end sexual harassment, close gender pay gaps and promote women in the media and entertainment industries.
In another nod to her own experience, Miller said she was “gossip-column fodder” in her early twenties and found herself “relentlessly harassed by 15 camera-armed men on a daily basis, determined to scare me to the point of rage or tears in the name of getting a newsworthy shot. My life and career was in the hands of people intent on destruction, people who judged and vilified me in ways they would never have done if I was a man.”
Alluding to an episode when she successfully sued photographers for an “intolerable campaign” of harassment and invasion of privacy, winning £37,000 in damages, Miller said: “I fought back, and changed the privacy laws.”
Miller added: “For me, the strongest significance of the Time’s Up movement is that, by bringing to light the darkest moments of some of the most powerful women in Hollywood, it sends a message to those who admire and listen to them.
“This message is that sexual harassment happens to everyone, even those who we think are untouchable because of their fame or celebrity status. It sends the message that being treated unfairly, cannot be an intrinsic part of being a woman.”
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of UN Women, told the packed room that the #MeToo moment was a tipping point that represented the culmination of years of work by women around the world.
She said it was an opportunity for women in the public eye to “speak for other women who are outside and invisible”.
“It is the first time we are seeing powerful men being made accountable,” said Mlambo-Ngcuka. “Accountability says to young men that this is not normal, this is not right.”
She called on the media not to stop reporting the story. “Don’t move to the next story until gender equality is reached. Stay with the story so we make sure the pendulum doesn’t swing the other way.”
Pamella Sittoni, the managing editor of the EastAfrican, a weekly newspaper published in Kenya, told attendees that before #MeToo, she had assumed harassment and discrimination was a problem only for African women.
“It was quite shocking for us,” said Sittoni. “We didn’t expect it to be as pervasive as it is. It was quite eye-opening for us.”
She said that, while she had not experienced harassment or open discrimination during her career, she counted herself among the lucky ones. “I know it exists. I have colleagues who are very frustrated about being put on the women’s pages. They can’t rise above that and they quit. And they are not getting equal pay,” she said.
“It is important we take this [the #MeToo movement] to Africa in a bigger way.”
She added #MeToo was not a women’s movement but “a humanity movement about respecting human dignity … Men shouldn’t feel that this is something targeting them. It’s a movement about [creating] a good world for all of us.”
Friday’s discussion, entitled #MeToo – now what?, is one of more than 280 side events being hosted at the UN by agencies and member states over the duration of the CSW, which runs from 12-23 March. About 440 other events will be held in New York. More than 8,000 people from 1,121 civil society organisations have registered – the largest number of attendees to date.
Also speaking at the event were Fatemah Farag, the founder of Welad el Belad and director of Women in News in the Middle East and North Africa, and Matthew Winkler, the co-founder and editor-in-chief emeritus of Bloomberg News.
The Norwegian minister for foreign affairs, Ine Marie Eriksen Soreide, closed the event by saying that a corner had been turned. “I think we can all agree there is no going back after this, there is no room for leaders that don’t take sexual harassment seriously,” she said.
